Gamemaster’s Note: this log is being written six months late. I got lazy throughout the summer and the game’s log suffered for it. As such, this post may be a little sketchier than I like with respect to details.

It was back to the Ugly Mug for our merry band as they were once more offered a job connected to the Party of Our Rooters. Last time, it was the Rooters that had sent them to Boise to try and bring home an informant, but this time it was a more “classic shadowrun” that was in the making.

Mr. Johnson needed the team to break into a local office building and acquire schematics, digital software, and an example of the hardware produced by the schematics. The office building, owned by an organization named Office Associates, LLC, was currently being rented by Tír Software Services (TSS) who’ve held the lease for a few years. TSS has strong ties to the government and frequently provides custom software and hardware for government projects.

The software could likely be stolen from any networked computer, but the schematics and resultant hardware would be a little harder to locate. Fly spy recon on the building revealed that the target goods were located in a cleanroom on the second floor of the building. The drone also revealed a sophisticated venting system on the roof that was located over the cleanroom.

And, thus, was a plan hatched to sabotage the venting system and intercept the request for service by the building managers. Then, the team would respond in the guise of the repair crew gaining access to the cleanroom. Various means by which to sabotage the venting were discussed, but there was some worry that if it was too obviously something dangerous that the building would be tipped off to the assault. A grenade launched into the duct, for example, seemed too revealing. In the end, the team decided to settle on something that seemed possible, if a little unlikely, but also rather disgusting and, therefore, more necessary to clean up.

Therefore: Cayden had to kill himself a pigeon, and he took the corpse up to the roof, pried open the venting systems doing his best to make the damage look “normal,” and dropped the bird corpse into the vent’s fan watching as it was mangled beyond recognition.

The call for a clean-up came in shortly thereafter. Octan was able to intercept the call and re-route it to the team, who indicated that they’d be there shortly. Camouflaging the van, the team pulled up and exited wearing nondescript “cleaners” uniforms and entered the building. The guard in the lobby was guarded, but convinced by their demeanor and dress that they were legit and she handed them off to another member of the building’s security to be taken to the cleanroom. That guard let them into it and then hovered on the outside.

The cleanroom was a bit of a mess. Blood had dripped into the room after the venting systems detected the foreign object and shut down the fan so the team began to pretend to clean things up while Octan stole the digital software. Unfortunately, though, the schematics were not easily located in the cleanroom. The hardware was relatively easily found, though, so some basic attempts at locating the schematics took place. Octan looked digitally while others searched the cleanroom systems. During these efforts, however, an alarm was set off. Adriana moved to the door to try and stall the guards while the others simply tore the hard drive out of a 3D printer hoping the schematics would be on it.

Unfortunately for the team, Adriana — when pressed to explain their actions — was brutally honest with the guards and admitted that they were there for the purpose of burglary. Guards take a dim view on such things, and Adriana ended up with a bullet to the gut for her honesty.

Having the hardware and software, and hoping they had the schematics, the team bid a hasty retreat. Adriana, wounded, summoned a spirit and used it’s Movement powers to exit the building as rapidly as possible. Ariel took the initiative to create her own exit, leaping through a window and into a decorative water feature on the building’s grounds. Everyone piled into the van, and Olympia moved to exit the building’s grounds.

But, standing in the exit was a final guard. He stood unflinching before as the van bore down upon him and seemed to shimmer slightly just before he was run down. Within moments, he re-materialized in the van itself and calmly requested that the team turn over the goods to him. While physical sense could not help but perceive this “person,” assensing was unable to detect anything other than team members in the van. The team, remembering the assassination that took place during Adriana’s investiture, realized that the assassin was likely one of these creatures.

Acting on instinct, Octan scanned the new passenger with his matrix systems and it was revealed to be some sort of sprite though Octan had never before encountered a sprite that had the means to take on some sort of physical form. The sprite, which eventually introduced itself as Ted, continued to remain calm and didn’t seem to fully understand that his request for the goods was never going to be honored. The team, meanwhile, grilled him a bit on his identity and what, exactly, he was.

The delay was, apparently, too much for whomever stood behind Ted and was directing his actions, as a second of these “super sprites” appeared in the van. This one was less personable, less-human and identified itself as Purpose. Unfortunately, for Ted, Purpose, and their master, the team was reluctant to turn over the goods to the sprites, and seeing that there would be no negotiating toward compromise, the sprites dematerialized and the team returned to the Ugly Mug and Mr. Johnson for their payment.

GM’s Note: It’s about three weeks since I actually ran this scenario so this is going to be both brief and less specific than my usual logs.

The date was February 25, 2075 and the event was the Investiture of Duchess Adriana Rukin. Her father, having left his title to his eldest child, was killed in a car bomb during the rebellion along with her elder brother. This left the title to her. This caused no end of strife between her and her mother, Evonne, (primarily because Adriana’s human metatype didn’t meet with the normal standards set by the aristocracy).

But regardless of the bad blood within the family, the time had come to invest Adriana formally with the responsibilities of her inheritance upon her twenty-fifth birthday. The actual investiture was a simple affair between Adriana, officials of the Tír government, and a bevy of lawyers but a few days after that, Evonne had prepared a fête in her daughter’s honor.

Knowing it would anger her mother, Adriana invited the rest of our protagonists to the party as well, though Octan was unavailable. Upon arrival, and being scanned for weapons and active magical signatures, the herald announced that her grace had arrived along with … friends … and the group moved into the room.

It was filled with a variety of the Tír elite, including two Princes: Rex and Jake Foster (the sasquatch and an ork respectively). Both moved quickly to congratulate the new Duchess along and wished her well along with all the requisite photographs. Adriana and Evonne had there moment as the other guests pretended not to pay attention and then, for much of the rest of the afternoon, proceeded to ignore each other.

Olympia, feeling a bit out of place with her exposed augmentations, oddly found herself entertaining some of the children that had attended. The kids, rather than being put off by her chrome, were intrigued and curious. Arial spent her time effectively schmoozing with the elites of the Tír throughout the party making contact with those who might one day be either employers or targets.

More interesting were the brothers Pliskin though not necessarily for their own actions but rather for the interest that Prince Jake Foster took in them. It’s hard enough as a Prince, harder still as an ork Prince, and Prince Foster thought it advantageous to shake the hands of the only other two orks in the room–at least those not wearing staff uniforms for the rental hall and catering company–and spend a bit of time talking with them.

The afternoon was primary a smooth one. There was one political altercation between Erik Lombard and Stephen Kurtz, two guests with opposing political points of view and members of the Rooters and Progressives respectively. Raised voices were quickly hushed and the duo spent the rest of the party willingly separated.

That is, until, a cry went out in the room. As everyone turned to its source, they saw Erik holding a gushing neck wound collapsing into the arms of his companion, Luke Baker. Adriana rushed to help, but saw that his wound was beyond her ability to heal. Others attempted first aid but it was not to be and Erik died. The Constabulary was quickly summoned and everyone was detained for questioning.

In the meantime, the team contacted Octan who was able to hack the building’s systems from offsite and acquire a copy of the various camera feeds for the party. Once the questioning began, it became clear that the attacker was not Stephen, even though he seemed the logical choice considering their earlier fight. Instead, the attacker was described as an average human male with no real distinguishing features. Conflicting witness reports meant that there was no clear picture of who did the deed, but the team hoped they might gain more insight by reviewing the tape.

Unfortunately, the tape raised more questions than it answered. The assailant was obviously appeared from no where on the video feed behind Erik. Grabbing a sharp knife from a table, he approached the target, did the deed, and then moved quickly back toward the wall where, while most were staring at Erik, he disappeared again. Awakened guests, including those in the party, had not seen anything on the Astral plane prior to the attack and the spirits used as magical security reported the same.

Looking deeper into Erik’s profile, they discovered that he was actually running for public office for the Rooters. His opponent, Maria Kaplan, was a member of the Progressive party, but she was not in attendance at the party. Mystified, the party had little to go on and, in truth, it was the Constabulary’s problem to deal with. When released, they went back to their lives.